


just like magic

by wordflows



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Magic Tricks, also warnings for shitty highschool aus, and lots of supportive sibling bullshit, but i'll try to do bg relationships, maybe someday i will be less terrible at tags, rose/kanaya is a thing, so hey i'm terrible at tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-17 01:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordflows/pseuds/wordflows
Summary: It's two months and change from their graduation in their senior year when John Egbert decides Dave Strider's hands are magic and he wants to borrow them. And the person attached to them.You know. To be his lovely assistant in the school talent show for a magic act.





	1. a: the coin pass

Your name is Dave Strider and it's two months and change from your graduation in your senior year when it happens.  
  
It's a pretty typical Tuesday morning with nothing to suggest your school year is going to take a sharp turn into weirdsville. You wake up first because you always wake up first, getting up with the sun despite the fact that you always set your alarm for the last minute in some pointless hope you will actually push the envelope and stay in bed longer. And sometimes you do, lying awake in bed buried underneath the warm covers and waiting until you absolutely have to move. But this morning like so many other mornings you get up when you wake up and only manage to convince yourself to lie there for a scant handful of minutes before you groan and swing your legs out of bed. The carpet is cold and you hate your life, but Rose got you some ridiculously warm slippers for your birthday last year and you manage to locate the left one on your first try and then have to get on your knees and feel around under your bed to find the right one. It's worth it once your feet are both encased in soft fuzzy warmth and are no longer in danger of freezing straight off. Then you drag your comforter around your shoulders and sit at your computer, checking your mail and browsing the internet until you've killed about an hour doing effectively fuck all.  
  
After that it's actually around the time you really have to start getting ready, so you snag your phone and shoot off a few responses to texts you got while you were out cold before you wander downstairs cat-quiet to grab yourself some coffee.  
  
Maybe not cat-quiet. The Lalondes have cats and they're cat-loud, knocking shit over when you're out of the room and yowling for attention when people try to sleep and stop paying attention to the cats for a terrible, horrifying moment. But you wander down quiet-quiet, avoiding making any noise as you move in a careful way that you don't even have to think about. Your door creaks but you know how to open it so it doesn't, know how to apply the exact right amount of pressure and when to stop it just before it betrays you with noise. You pad out into the hall. Rose and Roxy both tend to sleep in, and so does Mom, and all three of them sleep like the dead so you're not too worried about waking them. There's light under Dirk's door but you know if he's still up he never went to bed, despite the fact you definitely looked in to tell him to fuck off into dreamland the other night on your way to your own room.  
  
You decide he can have a few more minutes before you start nagging again and go downstairs. It's been years since you moved in - five, specifically - but the size of the house (mansion) is always a little daunting. The decor isn't really to your tastes, either. It's all blacks and purples and darker shades, heavy curtains and overstuffed furniture that makes you think of little old ladies and antiques. The lighting is sort of perpetually terrible but that part you do actually like since it's easier on your eyes. Sometimes on a good day you'll take your shades off when you're just home with your family.  
  
You also like the staircases, all with too-fancy banisters and delicate detailing. The steps down to the main floor are gorgeous and marble and thank god you have slippers because otherwise it'd be like walking on beautiful slabs of ice. Two black cats try to trip you on your way down but even this early your reflexes are good enough you dance around them as you head down the stairs and then into the kitchen. There are ten total cats in the Lalonde household currently and all of them take note you're awake and heading into the Place With The Treats, which means it's you and ten cats in the kitchen as you fire up the ridiculously expensive coffee machine. Your Mom got it when you and Rose started high school and you're the only one in the family who has bothered to learn what all the button combinations do.  
  
The chorus of meows at your feet won't wake up anyone else, but you shush the cats anyway even as you give them the treats they're completely using you for. Mutini is the only one who doesn't completely abandon you after you hand out treats so you pick the little black cat up and pet her, leaning against the counter and waiting for the _ding!_ that signals the real start of your morning. It's the heat as much as the caffeine that you crave, because New York hasn't decided that spring is a thing just yet.   
  
It's pretty easy to shift the still-purring cat to one arm and pour yourself a mug with your left hand. The harder part is always picking a mug to use. There's an entire two cupboards full of them and the mug armada is slowly encroaching on the territory of the nearby bowl repository. It's possible your family has a problem, and that problem is kitschy mugs. And, like, other problems. But the kitschy mug thing is the problem currently staring you in the face as you open the mug cabinet one-handed and stare into the face of too many options for a tired minute or two.  
  
After a little bit you decide to use the one with the unicorn because it feels like a unicorn sort of morning. The cheerful Lisa Frank colors always make things seem a little livelier somehow and you like the fluid lines of motion. Then you set Mutini down - she whines a little and rubs against your shin - as you go back for a second mug. The second mug you grab after thinking about it for another few minutes which you absolutely still have to spare is the plain white one with the pink silhouette of a girl in some kind of flippy-skirted fifties dress. It's pretty minimalist as far as coffee mugs go. You pour a spoonful of sugar into that one and stir, leave the coffee in the unicorn mug pitch black and plain, and then head up the stairs. Mutini and a few of the other cats try to wind around your feet as you go but you manage not to spill a drop. You also manage to swear at them about three times, but under your breath and without any actual heat.   
  
It'd be less easy to open Dirk's door if he had fucking bothered to shut it after you left last night, but he didn't, so you just nudge it fully open with your foot and let yourself inside. If the door isn't locked it's free game - that's the rule you and your siblings operate on, although for the most part you all try not to bother one another too much. Just, you know, the requisite amount to prove you're related and know every last way to play fast jazz on one another's nerves.  
  
Dirk's room is a controlled disaster. Sort of. There's a method to his madness but pretty much every inch of wall is covered in his posters and pictures, with no concept of "free space" or "white space" or whatever the fuck you'd call it when you don't layer posters like wallpaper. Everything in his room has a place, you know that, but there's so  _much_  that sometimes it looks more cluttered than it actually is. His workbench is currently a kind of closely monitored explosion, some robotic...something or another laid open for mechanical surgery. You have no idea what Dirk is actually working on, but it doesn't look like the same thing that he was working on last night, which you had dubbed at one AM to be "probably not a toaster" mentally and then ceased to think about.  
  
He is now working on what you decide is "probably not a lunchbox". He has a bunch of those collectible lunchboxes for old tv shows, a bunch of them displayed on some of the shelves in his room, and he is apparently using a TMNT one for...  
  
Whatever he's doing. You'd ask, but then he'd tell you. And considering he hasn't even looked up to see you leaning against his doorframe, you're pretty sure Dirk is at the far end of his exhaustion scale. You can see the hot chocolate you dropped off with him last night on his computer desk, where the contents have probably cooled to a congealed sludge. It's in the mug that Rose calls the "mug", the airquotes coming out verbally somehow without her ever having to make the motion. It's neon orange and  _theoretically_  a mug, but practically speaking it was made by you and you aren't a great potter. Most people outside of the family who have been blessed with seeing it and hearing you made it for Dirk assume you made it when you were five or six.  
  
You made it for him the Christmas you were sixteen. So. Yeah. Potter is not on your list of possible careers. Anyone else would maybe have thanked you and shoved the mug into the corner of their cabinets and their memory to never again see the light of day but Dirk is a sentimental asshole to ridiculous degrees and the "mug" is his favorite mug hands down. He gets snippy when other people try to use it - not that this is a major concern, because most people prefer mugs that do not require two hands to hold and which do not constantly look as though they might fall to pieces even if they don't. You kind of wish actual practice could get you to make a better mug but your year-long pottery course pretty much did not get you to display any kind of improvement whatsoever, and even if you could pull off a perfect mug you're pretty sure Dirk would still use the disaster version because it's something you made for him.  
  
Which honestly is kind of sweet. So. You don't bitch about Dirk liking the mug you got him, and you just let yourself revel in the warm sibling feelings it always evokes.  
  
Those warm fuzzy feelings are currently mixed with exasperated sibling feelings, however. You wander away from the door and to his computer desk, which sits perpendicular from the workbench he's currently at. You glance at his computer - screensaver, that horrific horse picture sequence that goes from skeleton to horse to raptor - and then peer into the mug. It looks like Dirk got through about half of the hot chocolate last night before getting caught up in his work.  
  
He's bent over his project with his shades up and in his hair for once. He's less militant about wearing them than you are, but he does also have his curtains pulled shut and his lights dimmed to accommodate his eyes. You're both photosensitive as shit with eyes too bright to be anywhere near to brown. You share enough in the looks department that people mistake you for twins sometimes, actually, although Dirk has a full year on you. You also share the same lanky build - Dirk's a little more muscled, you're a little more skinny, but you're both long-limbed and tall with Dirk being a centimeter or so taller - and the same onslaught of freckles. His hair is more honey-colored, like Roxy's, and yours leans platinum blond, but when he doesn't style the shit out of his hair it falls in the same kind of wave as yours.   
  
You're pretty sure that you both also share the dark circles under his eyes but his are almost definitely worse right now. For all you're a certified insomniac you sometimes manage to get a full night's sleep. Last night qualified, for example. Dirk, on the other hand, is even more likely than you to keep weird-ass hours until he crashes. He even takes all online courses for college so he can facilitate his own warped sleep schedule. It's hypocritical of you to judge but you do it anyway. You're his younger brother; that gives you some sort of hypocrisy pass, you're pretty sure.  
  
You watch him quietly for a minute or so and sip at your coffee while leaning your hip against his computer desk, trying to guess what the hell he's working on - time machine? microwave? secret safe? asking would ruin the mystery in addition to encouraging him to stay up even later like a moron. Then you decide the coffee has kicked in enough you can talk and announce your presence with the classic: "Dude, go the fuck to sleep already."  
  
Dirk kind of jolts but doesn't quite _jump_. There's no change to his expression beyond a very minor lift of his eyebrows you interpret as "complete surprise". He doesn't glare or anything, though, just immediately looks away from you and back at his Mystery Machine. You think it's a machine, anyway. There are gears? "In a bit, Dave. Nearly done."  
  
This is basically the number one lie Dirk tells you on a daily basis. Accordingly you just kind of snort. You hear an alarm go off in the background, and that reminds you of the surest threat to use in this kind of situation. Or one of the surest threats, anyway. "You said that like ten hours ago. When you should've gone the fuck to bed. I'm tellin' Roxy on you if you aren't in bed by the time I'm dressed. There is such a thing as beauty sleep and you're starting to be in seriously short supply, which you definitely can't afford." Your older sister is a better threat than you are. Dirk looks briefly scandalized and you figure he'll probably actually listen, or you can at least push the issue off to someone with more time and energy to nag Dirk into some actual shuteye. It's possible that he is instead scandalized about the beauty sleep comment, but considering it's Dirk you're pretty sure it's the threat to tell Roxy.  
  
"It's kind of a big deal project." He doesn't specify what it  _is_ , though, so you shrug. Possibly it's something for his fancy online engineering school. Possibly it's some sort of overdone sibling gift, although it can't be for you since he seems pretty calm about you seeing it. You really couldn't say for sure what it might be beyond that guess, though.  
  
"So's sleep. Seriously. Roxy. I'll tattle my ass off. I'm a snitch, you know this. The piggy that squealed to the market all the way home about what you did last summer." Maybe you need a little more coffee, but it's not like you pay attention to what you say to Dirk all that much. He's one of the people in your life who doesn't mind you unfiltered even when you're nonsensical or rambling. It's one of the reasons you love him. Not that you tell him that very often except like this: nagging him to go the fuck to bed when he's clearly about to fall over. Dropping off hot chocolate in a mug you made for him at night and nagging him to go the fuck to bed. Texting home during lunch and nagging him, you guessed it, to go the fuck to bed.  
  
It evens out when he nags you about everything else in the world. Eating right and doing your homework and staying safe. Between the two of you and your sisters, you all manage to maybe be semi functional human beings. That's the true meaning of family, you think. Creating a shambling zombie horde of potentially functioning human beings.  
  
"I don't think staying up a little late is really comparable to hiding a body, bro." Or maybe the true meaning of family is just dissecting lame metaphors you throw at one another. Okay, Dirk. Less sweet than your idea, but okay.  
  
"Bed!" Is your winning argument before you leave his room, figuring there's about a fifty percent chance you'll have to tattle to Roxy before you leave. Then you go one door down and rap on it with your foot because your sisters actually close their doors properly. Usually. Well, Rose does.  
  
She opens it within a minute of you knocking and grimaces more at the hour than at you, though you feel like that expression on her face is a little too delicate to be called that. Your twin might not have your freckle problem or the eye thing but you both have the same too-delicate features, the pale skin and nearly platinum-blonde hair of the same fine consistency. Hers is a little straighter than yours but she also uses straightening irons and shit that you just don't have the patience for. You do not share the same reaction to mornings, so you don't bother to say anything but instead just hold out the silhouette mug to her. She takes it and wanders back into her room, sipping the coffee as she goes back to her closet where she is still going through the Process that is picking an outfit.  
  
Rose usually seems pretty put together and like she doesn't try, but it's often the kind of trying that does try. It's a glass house you can't throw rocks at, so you don't. You just drop into her armchair and watch her sort through skirts and blouses as she drinks her way into accepting that morning is a thing, and wait for her to eventually examine the mug you've chosen for her after she finally comes up with a black pencil skirt and a cream cashmere sweater. They get carefully spread on her bed as she turns the mug this way and that, and then eyes you as someone's alarm clock goes off in the background.  
  
"Now, what do you mean by this, brother mine?" Like there's any secret meaning to what you grabbed downstairs.  
  
And there is, but it's not like you're going to tell her what it is outright because the guessing is part of the game you two play together. So you shrug. "Aren't you supposed to tell me?" Before she can you jump topics without warning, though. It's a thing you do. "So, hey, guess what I dreamed about last night."  
  
"Puppets." Rose is sipping her coffee again. And by "sipping" you she's drinking it fast like she always does, like the coffee is water and she's dying of dehydration. It's always kind of funny to watch. When she finishes off the last of the coffee she puts the mug on her table, collects her outfit, and goes into her closet to change. You let your gaze sweep around her room as you wait. While Dirk's room is too-busy chaos and yours is a more organized form of the stuff, Rose's room tends to be a little more on the austere side of things, done up in darker colors than either you or your brother favor. Rose does have bookshelves stuffed full of probably too many fantasy novels and an open bin of knitting projects, but otherwise she tends to prefer to keep her things to herself. You strongly suspect that her closet is the least organized closet in the entire Lalonde household despite the rest of her room, but you've never been able to confirm this. Rose doesn't want you in her closet and you've yet to feel like testing her patience with that level of snooping just yet. You're pretty sure you're still on her list from when you read all her writing journals near the end of the eighth grade and you haven't gotten bored or curious enough to see if you can get a higher rank on the list since then. When Rose comes back out she heads for her dresser to pull out tights, and to Accessorize. It's a process.  
  
"Well, yeah, but besides that. So, okay, get this. I was driving my car, right?" You gesture as you speak, like you always do, and it sloshes your remaining coffee around in your unicorn mug. A warning glance from your sister gets you to dial down the gesturing a bit, because you don't particularly want to spill coffee on anything she owns. Rose wouldn't be _mad_ , exactly, but she doesn't have to be mad to make you feel bad about things. It's a talent.  
  
She selects bright purple tights from her bottom dresser drawer and begins to pull them on. You're never sure how she or Roxy manage it without ripping them; tights seem like a pain to you. "You mean your death trap."  
  
"Do you want a ride to school or not?" The car was Dirk's before it was yours and a junker before that. While Mom has offered to upgrade you, you're maybe as much a sentimental asshole as your brother is and you've never been willing to let it go. It's the car you learned to drive in, the car that Dirk used to drive you around in even before he should have been legally driving. The car is old and you're not really clear on the make or model (Dirk tells you both of these things sometimes but you haven't got a head for cars so it's in one ear and out the other) but it works. And it's red. It just, you know, makes worrying sounds sometimes. And it has that old car worn-in sort of smell. You like it. Rose hates it.  
  
She hates walking to school or riding the public bus even more, though. "My apologies. By all means, continue."  
  
"So I was driving my car, and it was night. Only it was a night that was like - there were no stars, there wasn't a moon, there weren't even any streetlights. It was just me and the road." Just you and no one else, and you'd felt alone but not lonely until you'd looked over at the passenger seat with a joke on your lips and then found there was no one to tell it to. Somehow that was the most horrifying part of the entire nightmare in the way perfectly mundane things sometimes are. "I'm not sure how I could see the road, really? It was, I don't know, luminescent. Or I just knew it was there. But anyway, I was driving, and I suddenly realized I didn't know where I was going? So I tried to pull off the road, you know, to get directions, but there was nowhere to pull off. And then I realized it wasn't the road, it was the ocean. And then I was sinking." This statement is punctuated by another alarm going off in the background. You think that makes three so far, so Roxy's in top form today.  
  
"I'm surprised you didn't die." Rose chooses a purple headband and carefully slides it on, adjusting it this way and that. After she gives herself a satisfied smile in her mirror she adds a necklace with a purple pendant. It's the heart-shaped almost-clear stone with the lavender tint and the flowers inside; Roxy got it for Rose for Valentines day, because none of you were dating anyone this year and Roxy insisted on a sibling present swap to make up for it. The purple heart-shaped earrings you got her for the same swap are added next. Rose isn't subtle about her favorite color, but you're not really one to talk so you don't comment. Instead you consider her remark about your dream. You've been telling her your dreams daily for years and years and years, and you do die more often than not. It's weird, maybe, because some people say you can't die in dreams. You've never found this to be the case, though.  
  
"Maybe I did. I don't know, I woke up when the water was covering the car. So hit me with your best shot, Freud, what does this say about me? Beyond dicks, I mean." At least you're long past the stage of your life where you had "deeply hidden homoerotic leanings" or whatever. You're bisexual. It's a thing. Admitting that hasn't stopped your sister from talking about the phallic symbolism in your dreams and at this point you're pretty sure you'd miss it if she stopped doing that. It's comforting, almost, how Rose can play connect the dicks with random symbols in your dreams, especially the ones you don't want to look at too seriously but do want to share with someone just to say them aloud. This dream isn't one of those kinds.  
  
"Beyond the obvious dicks meaning, I would say that perhaps you are feeling the pressure of the near-college crunch. Have you decided on a major yet, Dave?" So maybe you shouldn't be too surprised when she circles back to that, because she's been doing it more often recently. But...  
  
"Rose, man, no. You're supposed to make shit up, not talk about real life issues." Because the thing about your major is that you just don't know what to pick. There's too many things you're interested in and you're not sure you want to make a career out of any of them. What if that tarnishes them somehow? Or what if you choose the wrong one? It's a huge decision and you've always sucked at those. You're more likely to let Rose or Dirk or Roxy order for you at a restaurant after staring at the menu for too long than not. Picking something to dedicate the rest of your life to is a bigger decision than even that and you've taken to avoiding your guidance counselor in the halls. The poor woman is probably going to have a heart attack if she can't pin you down to a major soon, but career counseling sessions have yet to help you.  
  
Rose laughs at you and starts to collect her bag, which you take as your cue to stand to head back to your room. "Well, when you want to discuss what you're doing next, you know where to find me...in the meantime, I'll go prepare breakfast."  
  
"I want strawberry-flavored." That's called over your shoulder. "Breakfast" by Rose standards is poptarts. She's not much of a chef. None of you are, though Roxy sometimes gets ambitious and you're capable of following a recipe to kind of bland results.  
  
"Dave," Rose says in a suddenly more serious tone of voice, and you stop, listening. "I think I may ask today."  
  
She means Kanaya, who she has been dithering about asking out for over a year, like you meant Kanaya by the mug you picked. You shrug. "Yeah. You look happy. When you're with her, I mean. And you're wearing tights in like, thirty degree weather, because she once told you she liked those shoes you only ever wear with tights for some reason. You know she'll say yes, right?"  
  
"I do not in fact know that for certain, and neither do you." But you can tell by the way her eyes warm as she brushes past you to leave the room that she appreciates it anyway.  
  
"By the way, I think your personal mug choice today is of course rather phallic, even for you. The unicorn, Dave? Swathed in rainbows? Symbol of virgins?" She's heading towards the bathroom first to do her makeup presumably, but stops to say just this much more.  
  
"Symbol of Lisa Frank, who happens to be the shit, you mean." You're pretty sure it's a Lisa Frank unicorn, anyway. She flaps her hand at you and goes to presumably do mystical things with eyeliner. Or, okay, you actually know her exact makeup routine and could even do it for her in a pinch. You have done it for her, when she broke her wrist in the eighth grade. Roxy and Dirk were in ninth so you were in different schools at the time, and you learned in case Rose needed touching up over the course of the day since Roxy wasn't available. You're pretty sure Dirk can do it, too, but he's never said.   
  
Getting dressed is a little less of a process for you than it is for Rose, since you haven't got anyone in particular to impress beyond the entire world. Black jeans, red converse, warm red hoodie over a mauve sweater over a long-sleeved t-shirt advertising a local ice cream shop. You do not suffer cold weather gracefully, and your thick winter jacket will get shoved on over everything before you leave the house. For now you grab your messenger bag and leave your room, checking in on Dirk before you do anything else.  
  
He's sprawled on his bed, completely out cold. You duck inside his room to cover him with his comforter, turn off the lights, and collect the mug to take downstairs for the dishwasher. Back across the hall and a door down from the bathroom that sits squarely between your rooms is Roxy's open door, painted bright pink. She's not a morning person in the sense that it takes her a few alarms to wake up, but she is a morning person in the sense that when she spots you peering in she gives you a million megawatt smile. She immediately abandons her closet-diving for an outfit to come over and throw her arms around you in a loose hug, lips smacking your cheek in an over-dramatic kiss. She's the only one who really inherited your mom's habit of open physical affection, although you always like it when it happens.  
  
Her honey-blonde hair is pinned up at the moment, and one of the bobby pins digs into your cheek for a second as she squeezes you before she lets go. "Morning, Davey! Does Dirk need another warning? Oooh, the unicorn today, huh? Are we feeling happy?" Unlike Rose, Roxy never tries to psychoanalyze your choices in mugs beyond maybe a mood read. She's rarely wrong about her mood guesstimates, either.  
  
You shrug. "It's not a bad day." It's a Tuesday, but you don't really have anything against Tuesday for existing. "And nah, he's passed out finally. So all you have to nag him about is eatin', whenever he wakes up again."  
  
She nods cheerfully, although she didn't really need the reminder. You and Dirk are both terrible at remembering to eat, and Rose and Roxy are pretty good about random reminders that eating is a thing people should be doing. Or you and you brother just nag one another. It's a nagging circle of life and love, or something. "He doesn't have any classes 'til late anyways." She drags out the s like a z, and you all know one another's schedules more or less but you just nod along, too. "Text me updates about the Kan thing as soon as you know anything, okay? Rosie's so terrible about sharing."  
  
You promise to snitch on your twin about any romantic entanglements, then take a fourth mug from Roxy to take downstairs as she returns to her closet. In the kitchen you rinse your collection of mugs and start the dishwasher running, then grab Rose and the toasted strawberry poptart she hands to you, which you eat as you drive the two of you to school. She's out the door as soon as you park and you say "Good luck!" as she leaves because you don't really share any classes this year so you won't see her until lunch. Her first period class is all the way across the campus and yours is pretty near the parking lot, so you can afford to loiter at least a little bit. Not that you want to, because you're freezing.  
  
Your hands are almost always cold in winter, permanently. To keep them warm you tend to keep them moving or shoved deep in your pockets; there's no inbetween. You've mastered all sorts of fairly stupid pencil-related tricks in class to facilitate perpetual hand motion, and at this point in your life you can balance pretty much any office supply on your fingertips. Skills that will clearly take you far in life.  
  
There's this, too: a dumb trick you picked up off of a late night YouTube binge, a coin rolling over your knuckles and under them, disappearing from one hand to the other without any real thought being put into the action. It hadn't taken all that long to master back when you'd seen the videos, although it had taken you a while to locate any loose change to try it with. You carry some loose change with you now to fuck around with and keep moving, and after locking up your car and starting towards Chemistry you dig out a few quarters and start up the dumb little sleight of hand tricks, trying to convince your hands that blood does in fact still flow through them and that's a good thing.  
  
And this is the last moment of your senior year that's normal. Walking to Chemistry, coins rolling around and over and through your fingers as you nod at people you recognize and ignore those you don't, and then come the words that you do not yet realize will define the next few months of your life.  
  
"Holy shit, you have magic hands!" It's a slightly deeper than yours voice and you turn, not recognizing it, and holy shit you've never seen eyes that blue, have you? It's a guy maybe two inches shorter than you with a stupid grin and ridiculously messy dark hair. He's got the kind of fading tan that says he spent enough time outdoors in the warmer months that winter barely had an impact. You've seen him around, even had a class or two together, but you've never really talked. He's in gym with you this year, you're pretty sure. Disgustingly athletic and usually in the clump of kids who actually go near the ball for the sport of the day, participating and doing the whole teamwork thing while you linger at the edges away from the action and more importantly away from the effort. "You've got to let me borrow them."  
  
It takes a second, but when your brain processes what was just said to you, you can pretty much only come up with a single thought.  
  
"What?" It's the nearest to wordless you've been since Rose pointed out your latest in a long line of Freudian slips and your siblings ganged up on you to fluster you into silence with coordinated teasing. Only more awkward, because you're pretty sure this kid - John, his name is John - just asked to borrow your magic hands and _what_.  
  
"For the school talent show!" And he grins and it has more teeth than you've ever seen any of your siblings show in a smile or any of your friends save maybe Terezi and it makes his eyes crinkle up and wow he's just as energetic up close as he always seemed to be across a soccer field.  
  
But more importantly: "The what now?"


	2. a: the disappearing act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Your sales pitch could use serious work here. Hey, random guy I don't know! Want to come to a school talent show with me to put on a magic show with questionably trained pigeons for some kind of prize?" The heavy sarcasm doesn't seem to penetrate this guy's shield of sheer good-natured cheer and you're almost certain that it would take heavy land to air missiles to even make him start to frown at this point.

School talent shows have always seemed to be the stuff of TV shows and movies. You know that theoretically they are actual real live things that exist but you've never really been one for participating in extracurricular anything. The closest you got was doing face painting at a school carnival slash dance in middle school and that was to raise money for the book club. Which Rose had been president of in the 8th grade. So that was less an extracurricular and more a sibling obligation. She paid you by agreeing to let you read any future writing journals without your having to resort to snooping. Wizardfic is not usually your cup of tea but you like reading what Rose writes. You're not the twin who does psychoanalyzation but you can definitely pick things up she might not want you to pick up through her stories. Also they're frankly hilarious. Sometimes even on purpose.

There are always posters up around the school for some sort of event or another. School dances, school fundraisers, school plays, school sports shit, school clubs...there's a million and one things going on at all times and you barely register the individual posters unless they're made with glitter or something particularly eye-catching. And even then you don't always register the information so much as the aesthetic layout of the poster about whatever the fuck. Once you took down a poster advertising the school science fair because you liked the juxtaposition of the terrible clip art and the horrible font on neon pink paper with glitter gel pen accents and you didn't really bother to read what it was about until you were hanging it on your wall. You rely entirely on Rose and your friends to keep you in the loop about anything you should actually care about.

Apparently neither your twin nor any of your friends though the school talent show was something you should care about.

"You know!" You obviously do not know but it's a filler phrase so you let it slide. "The talent show - third week of May? There's prizes for first, second, and third place." John-from-gym-class beams as he rambles on about the talent show that is apparently near and dear to his heart.

Prizes, but you doubt anything that interesting or you would have heard about it. Probably it's those shitty trophies, the plastic kind that look goldish which always inexplicably have a dude bowling. Or playing soccer. You think soccer? It could be football. You kind of have never given enough of a fuck about any sport ever and you know you mix metaphors when you try to pull from anything sports-related even more badly than you usually do. Rose firmly believes this means you should stop trying to use sports metaphors, but you've been fumbling through them since you were a kid and you're a stubborn fuck about admittedly random bullshit. These dumb foothills of random misremembered sports terms and trivia are the hills you will die on. Probably while Rose sighs in exasperation from somewhere nearby.

John-from-gym-class is still talking, and you missed, like, a good portion of his rambling because you were thinking about sports metaphors and prizes. Fuck. You're the worst conversationalist, it's you.

At least John doesn't seem to notice. Neither does anyone else. You've both stopped out of the main flow of traffic right next to the broken water fountain near the main hall, so you're not really impeding traffic. Only the most desperate students will risk using the janky main hall water fountain since it either sprays you full on in the face with water or offers up a few random drops that quench no thirst whatsoever with absolutely no inbetween. You've seen some people working on it off and on for the past four years but none of the work has ever seemed to take. You're pretty sure if it did get fixed it would somehow doom the timeline. It's just fated never to work.

And yeah, John's still talking. Shit. You tune back in. " - but with your talent my magic show could really go to the next level? I've only been able to do one-person tricks before." John-from-gym-class whose last name you still can't remember is smiling at you and the expression doesn't even look remotely nervous. He must be a people person.

"Like, a saw people in half and escape from chains in water magic show?" He's your age, in your grade, and don't people usually sing or dance or whatever at school talent shows? You're pretty sure usually they sing in the movies and then go famous because of course some huge talent scout was at their high school talent show, or they get the girl slash boy or whatever who they were pining over for years. In some order. You've never actually seen anyone do magic tricks in a school talent show. You only went to one, way back when you were in the third grade in Texas. You and Dirk went to the local high school to watch theirs and you fell asleep during a tap-dancing routine. You woke up mid baton-twirling routine slumped against his shoulder. Every other act you saw was music-related.

You like music so technically you should probably enjoy talent shows. But school talent shows tend to have...not a lot of talent, from what you know. Or what tropes in TV shows would have you believe. Does TV tropes dot com have a school talent show page? Probably some sort of talent show page, at least. You can name at least three shows off the top of your head that used a talent show in a filler episode...

John laughs, and you'd almost term that noise a guffaw. You've never heard someone guffaw before so this is a novel experience. A total scrapbook moment. "More like a doves-from-hats and card trick kind of show? I mean, the other stuff would be pretty cool but I don't really have the equipment for that."

"But you have live doves?" This is somehow the sticking point in that sentence. You tend to get hung up on minor details according to Rose. "Or do they, like, have a dove rental place?" You're picturing some cheerful shop decorated with top hats on the windows run by a less terrifying version of Willy Wonka. Maybe some little old man decked out in purple with a fondness for show tunes? He'd have a dove on either shoulder and they would be trained to help him at the register. Maybe they'd learn to hand customers their change.

"I think you actually can rent them for weddings? I am not sure about for magic shows. Maybe? But I have a a cousin who keeps birds and they are theoretically trained?" _Theoretically_ trained is not _actually_ trained so you figure this guy is planning a disaster waiting to happen. The school talent show is apparently going to have at least an infestation of birds in addition to anything else that goes wrong.

You should either be somewhere else that day or up in the bleachers - seats? where the fuck do they host it, just the theater? - with one of your cameras. "Theoretically trained." You don't even try to make your flat statement less dubious than it is because theoretically trained birds definitely deserve every ounce of dubious you can muster.

There's a sheepish shrug in response as John shifts his bag from one shoulder to the other, rocking back and forth on his heels. He seems to have a bit of trouble standing still, and once you realize you've been standing there for a few minutes talking instead of sticking to your getting to class schedule you start walking towards Chemistry again. John falls into step with you and you hope that he either has class in your direction or that he can book it across school in a pinch, but he's talking to you still so you don't interrupt him to ask. "He theoretically spends a lot of time with them and it is supposedly training-related, but I'm not sure they're actually that well behaved? And also they are pigeons, so they aren't really doves."

"Your sales pitch could use serious work here. Hey, random guy I don't know! Want to come to a school talent show with me to put on a magic show with questionably trained pigeons for some kind of prize?" The heavy sarcasm doesn't seem to penetrate this guy's shield of sheer good-natured cheer and you're almost certain that it would take heavy land to air missiles to even make him start to frown at this point.

Seriously. He's grinning at you even more brightly and that is not a thing that should be humanly possible considering how big a grin he'd been displaying already. You'd almost suspect him of being about to skip down the halls, but thankfully he doesn't actually start. He just looks near to it, bursting with way too much energy even for someone like you who is more or less perfectly at ease with Roxy's famously high energy levels. "Okay, so what would you find an enticing sales pitch? I can make colored charts and graphs, if that would help. I mean I don't see why it would help, really, but my cousin says they make things sound better."

"Your bird-training cousin?" His cousin is starting to sound weirder and weirder. Why the hell is he listening to the bird-training cousin who apparently can't even train birds properly?

John shakes his head as you turn a corner and get briefly separated in the sea of people. You think maybe that'll be the end of it, but it takes him about twenty seconds to shove his way back to your side. One of the kids he moves over - firm but not mean about it - actually says _Ow_ and you eye John's arms and have to admit you're a little impressed. Note to self: don't stand in the way of John-from-gym-class in the halls. He immediately picks up the thread of conversation again as soon as he's back beside you. "No, that's my younger cousin. This is my older cousin. One of them. But seriously I could, like, pay you?"

And, okay, what? All you did was fuck around with some coins on your way to class. He has no idea if you'd be good at the rest of...whatever it is he wants you to do. You're still not entirely clear on that. "This is starting to sound more and more like the plot to a movie. And if you're offering to pay me it can't be to earn money to buy your very own car or bike or whatever - although I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about this if it were actually a substantial monetary prize because hello that'd get talked about - so it must be to win tickets to a concert or to win a pretty girl's attention and heart."

John straight up blushes and you think _Bingo!_ with a surprising amount of resigned amusement. And holy shit, who the fuck tries to win someone over with a magic show at a school talent thing? While you find the idea a little endearing for how utterly ridiculous and genuine it seems, you're pretty sure most people would just find it plain ridiculous. "No! I just, you know. Isn't there anything you've ever really wanted to do?"

There are plenty of things you want to do every day but you somehow get the feeling that isn't what he means. So you just raise your eyebrows to prompt any sort of clarification that might be forthcoming.

There isn't a clarification but he does try to alter the pitch. "We could do tricks without birds?" Which to be fair is a pretty decent alteration as far as alterations go.

That said, it isn't really doing much for you and you're still a little thrown by the fact he approached you at all. Not because you're unapproachable - you're not popular but you're not an outcast or anything like that - but more because it's so completely random. "Do you even have a list of tricks you plan to do, here? Also, seriously, you know nothing about me, don't you have friends you could ask...?"

"I know you're good with your hands!" John somehow manages to say this rather loudly as you pass by some of the English classrooms, and a gaggle of girls outside 103 burst into giggles as soon as he does.

You'd facepalm but instead you just give him a mildly appalled look. "Dude. Okay, can you like...think about the things you say before you say them in a crowded hallway?" It's not going to ruin your reputation or anything but _holy shit_? And it's also not like you aren't just as bad or way worse sometimes, but this is clearly an entirely different situation.

John doesn't even look remotely sorry, just grinning and shrugging. So he'll blush about being accused of doing something to impress a pretty girl but he won't blush about incriminating-sounding statements in public? Go figure. "Sorry. But...it would be fun?"

"Again: sales pitch, not your strong point. Like I said, I am not a magic show kind of dude. Or a school talent show kind of dude? I am a currently starting to flirt with bein' the late for Chem sort of dude, apparently." Because, like, school? That's still a thing that is happening around you. And while you're aware people tend to find you a little lackadaisical at times one thing you are not is tardy. You're the most punctual person you know. None of your siblings has any idea where you get it since it isn't a trait any of them show very strongly, although you know Dirk is never late to a meeting with a friend or loved one. Dirk was a little lax about classes, though, and you remember him collecting tardy slips more often than not. Rose and Roxy have gotten their fair share, too. But you? Never.

So John-from-gym-class might be cute and fascinatingly weird and all but you aren't about to stick around talking for too much longer. It'd mean pretty much fuck all if your perfect attendance were broken but you kind of like having it. Even if you'd never brag about it to anyone but your siblings. And you're quickly coming up on your Chemistry classroom, which you'd ideally like to be inside of within the next two minutes.

His expression falls a little bit for the first time, but it picks up immediately after as he seems to cheer himself up. "Oh! Oh, right. Okay well I'll catch up with you after lunch, then? Or during lunch - "

"Got a hot date already." You don't, but you _do_ have plans. You've eaten lunch with Rose every day since the start of eighth grade and while you know she wouldn't mind if you ditched her for a cute guy, _you_ would mind. And you know that while she could have ditched you for a cute girl a million times in the last year she never has. You also know for a fact that Kanaya has never asked that she do so, which is one of the many reasons you like Kanaya. Kanaya joins in at your lunch table sometimes and she's funny in a really subdued way and she never tries to shortchange you on time that you and Rose have always earmarked for one another and she makes Rose smile in a relaxed kind of way that makes you happy to see. So.

 _Rose_ wouldn't mind but _you_ don't want to give up your midday check-in with her, especially when you don't share any other classes.

John-from-gym-class doesn't look let down at all this time, though. He just grins despite the fact you've turned him down for his talent show recruitment scheme several times in the past few minutes. "I'll see you in class, then!" Apparently because he's decided this isn't over yet, whatever this is.

You're reasonably sure he'll have forgotten all about this by the time gym class rolls around, though. He sticks around outside of your Chemistry classroom as you walk inside, and when you risk a glance over your shoulder he grins - does he ever not grin? - and waves at you before he takes off at a dead run in the opposite direction.

There's pretty much no way he's going to make it to his class without a tardy because the bell rings a few seconds after he's out of your sight.


	3. a: the spoon bending trick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your sister takes two trays and sets them side by side as you hit the main portion of the lunch line, sliding them along and filling both trays as you trail after her. "I'd rather appreciate you for your creativity. Tell me something interesting, Dave."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~taffypearls was the beta for this for me!

Despite the weird start to your day the rest of your morning classes go pretty much as expected for a Tuesday. You spend some time diagramming chemicals in Chemistry and that's kind of cool because you like atom maps or whatever the term for that is and it's easy to think about in the same way you find math easy to think about. After Chemistry you have AP Calculus. You don't really plan to do anything math heavy with your life after high school - you don't think you plan to do anything like that anyway - but you and numbers have always gotten along. You like classes where the answers are solid and easy to find if you know the language even though most people might expect you to prefer more creative classes. And you do like creativity in class, yeah, but math is just kind of relaxing to you. You don't need to make any decisions about numbers. They're the same no matter what you do, and all you have to do is solve equations that do not change or expect anything beyond an answer that is already there to give.

After AP Calculus is the less relaxing US History course you're taking because of a history requirement which is only less relaxing because it is the brand of mind-numbingly boring that keeps you ever so slightly on edge with required class participation. It's two months from the end of the scholastic year and you're still stuck in the industrial revolution. It's kind of pathetic and you spend most of the class fucking around online on your phone, carefully shielded by your desk and years of skill in texting when you shouldn't be. Your History teacher tends to show a lot of powerpoints and expects you to take notes on every single slide. You scribble down random thoughts in your beat-up notebook every so often so it looks like you're bothering to do that. You compose a rap on how powerpoints have the potential to be a great sleep aid and make a mental note to show it to Dirk later.

Then there's English, where you're currently working through a poetry unit. You have learned that you have maybe three classmates who can write decent poetry and that the group of guys who sit nearest the door will try to shove as much innuendo in their poems as possible. You appreciate both the decent poets and the funny-to-themselves teenage guys, honestly. Innuendo-riddled poetry is kind of hilarious for its own sake. You'd tell anyone you're in the decent poet group but when you're not talking about yourself and are instead just being yourself you're not as confident as you make yourself out to be. You think that if you had to genuinely judge yourself you'd say you're just okay. You like writing raps and shit and you think you've got a good grip on the flow of words and rhymes and rhythms. You wouldn't mind just being in the second group, though. Sometimes you really do turn in shit meant just to get laughs from other people. How much effort you put in depends on the day.

And then finally you have lunch, which is everyone's favorite period. You speed walk - which is honestly more your normal speed than you trying to be fast - across the building to the science wing to loiter outside Rose's biology class where you lean against the lockers and wait for her to collect her things. She's always just a little bit slow coming out of any class that has labs since she actually stays to tidy up her station usually. As soon as she's out you turn and start walking with her to the cafeteria, automatically holding out your arm to take her heavier textbooks.

Rose won't be able to make it to her locker again until just after seventh period because she managed to get a locker in the little alcove that somehow manages to be light years away from every single class she has and every single class anyone has because it's apparently a ridiculous black hole in the scholastic sphere somehow, and you have a locker in the same alcove so you couldn't even trade with her to make her life easier. So Rose lugs around all her morning textbooks until after seventh, a period before she has to go home. You tend to live on the edge and go textbook free unless you're absolutely certain you'll need one, which usually ends with you just borrowing someone else's book from time to time or snagging a copy from an exasperated teacher. Pretty much the only morning text you tote around is your Calc book. Rose on the other hand? She has books for everything but her final period.

After you take the books not in her bag you take the bag she is automatically handing over to you and you sling that over your shoulder. You are the bag bitch, it's you. You make sure her book bag is secure layered over yours on your shoulder and then focus on keeping your speed to Rose's slightly slower pace. "I could pretty much never go to the gym again as long as I come to pick you up from class daily."

This claim earns a roll of her eyes and you grin. Or the very corner of your lips curls up, anyway, which is basically the same thing. "You never go to the gym _now_."

"But if I did go to the gym, I mean." You're unlikely to ever start. You go running with Dirk some mornings and evenings and you do some exercises on your own, but you've never really liked the concept of a gym as a whole. There are too many people who try to start up awkward conversations with you that you just don't want to have.

"You do realize we have some variation of this conversation every single time you walk me to a class, don't you?" Rose sounds wry but not unamused. And it's true. You like the routine of it and you think Rose doesn't mind it either because her complaints are never really serious at all.

You prod her with your elbow as you get the door open for her and hold it despite juggling two sets of school supplies. "Appreciate me for my consistency." The two of you head straight for the lunch line, which is going pretty quickly at the moment. Looks like mashed potatoes and maybe-gravy and some probably-turkey for the day. Thanksgiving in March. Sweet.

Your sister takes two trays and sets them side by side as you hit the main portion of the lunch line, sliding them along and filling both trays as you trail after her. "I'd rather appreciate you for your creativity. Tell me something interesting, Dave."

You let her fill the trays without comment or complaint. Your twin knows what you like and even if you don't like everything she grabs you'll eat it, so who cares? "Rose, we're in high school. It's pretty much the tail end of senior year. Why do you think there's anything interesting to tell? I guess Makara has gotten even less connected to our physical plane - you know, the plane where we're high school students and class is a thing - and hearing him talk to the teachers is like hearing two alien species trying to communicate for the first time, but that ain't really interesting so much as it is expected. Besides, aren't you the one who has something interesting to tell me?"

Rose has never been one to blush - unfair, when you're an obvious blusher if you get that flustered - but she does smile prettily and duck her head. "This Friday. And she wanted to know if I'd like to eat lunch with her and her friends tomorrow...if you don't mind abandoning our usual table."

It's kind of gratifying in a way to know that Rose wouldn't ditch you, either. If you say no, you're pretty sure she'd say no. But you're not that big an asshole. Not always, anyway, and not to your sister. She's pretty much one of your top favorite people in the universe. "Sure. Terezi and the others ain't gonna give a fuck." And it's true. Your friends are all pretty easygoing, and as you follow Rose sliding your trays down to the end - she puts down the money for both of you, snagging your wallet out of your back pocket to cover yours as you juggle all your combined school supplies - you glance over at the table you all usually manage to get. It's near the big window so you can pretend you're outside in the courtyard without actually going outside to the courtyard. The best of both worlds.

Terezi is already there. So are Karkat, Aradia, and Sollux. It looks like Karkat and Sollux are arguing about something while the girls speak more quietly to one another (in Aradia's case, anyway) across the table. Tavros must be missing the lunch period for some reason - maybe he decided he needed an extra study hall? - or he's running way later than he usually does.

Once you've paid for your meals Rose takes both trays and lifts them with all the skill of someone who has waitressed part time for most of high school before she leads the way to your table. You slide into your usual seat next to Aradia and across from Terezi, while Rose sits next to you and across from Karkat.

"There was a new Sgrub expansion last night." Aradia says to you, leaning in to snag your jello and trading you a pack of thin-sliced apple chips. Score. She's speaking low-voiced, although the two of you are typically the quietest speakers at the table so her speaking even more softly isn't really necessary and it means you have to lean in close to catch what she's saying. Admittedly the two of you don't have a lot of competition in the quietest speaker department. Rose isn't loud exactly but she has a firm voice and she's audible, and Terezi and Karkat are Terezi and Karkat. Sollux is more Rose-level than anything else. Tavros varies, but even stuttering he's louder than you and Aradia. "And Sollux played through it all alone..."

Oh, so it's _that_ kind of argument. You roll your eyes and pop open the bag of chips, offering Aradia one before you keep the rest of the bag to yourself. Rose doesn't bring up her future date with Kanaya to any of your friends, but you assume she'll tell them one on one later or she'll tell the group after she actually goes on the date. Rose tends to like to wait for things to be sure before she reveals them so that no one is aware of any potential failures. You get a pass as her twin, you suppose, although it took you years to reach that level with her. Rose does mention that the two of you will probably sit with Kanaya tomorrow but this is met with general neutrality.

You're friends, all of you, and you tend to group together more often than you don't. But you've never been militant about that which is one of the things you like about your group. Aradia has a bunch of friends she LARPs with and a D&D group, Tavros tends to tag along with her or occasionally hangs with Makara and some of the others, Sollux hangs out with kids who actually get computer code, Terezi sometimes goes with Aradia's LARP friends or with a group of kids who like some legal drama show none of the rest of you watch, Karkat is in a few clubs and while he's easily the most prickly of all of you he talks to a lot of people (at length, which they sometimes don't want). Rose has book club friends and Kanaya and you're friendly with some of the kids in your photography course and some guys you used to skateboard with back in the day. You eat lunch as a group more often than you don't, but it isn't unusual for any of you to eat with a different group every so often (though you stick to Rose always) and no one really minds. A heads up is nice but not required.

Your phone buzzes as Karkat continues to bitch about Sollux not waiting for him to play the game with him, and you check it without bothering to hide the fact that you're not paying attention. Rose has cracked open a book and so has Aradia, and Terezi is heckling both sides of the ongoing argument to keep it going.

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 12:13 --  
TT: Thanks.

So Dirk's awake, at least.

TG: np  
TG: have you eaten actual food yet or nah

You get sent a picture of a bowl of cereal, half-gone, and decide this qualifies as actual food by Strider standards.

TT: You?

In return you send Dirk a picture of your half-demolished lunch tray, and the bag of apple chips that you've finished off. Proof of life, lunch style.

TT: Nice.  
TT: Roxy wants to know about the Maryam situation.  
TG: said yes to a friday thing and wants to do lunch tomorrow  
TG: im invited  
TG: how dressy do you think i should go here  
TG: suit and tie  
TG: just slacks and a nice shirt  
TG: what do you do to impress your future inlaws  
TT: It's one date, and you just want to annoy Rose.  
TG: y  
TG: but also shes been into her for like a solid year  
TG: admittedly into her i mean  
TG: as in she admitted it  
TG: im pretty sure she liked her before then  
TG: ok all those pronouns are confusing but you know who i meant in each  
TG: anyway you dont seem too talkative rn  
TG: nap some more dude or get some coffee into you  
TG: well see you when we get home  
TT: Roger that. Roxy wants me to tell you that you're crap at snitch details re: romance, by the way.  
TG: she knew this when she hired me on and has only herself to blame

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 12:26 --

By the time you shut off pesterchum the gaming argument has - no, it's still going. Terezi is excellent at what she does and she shoots you a grin over the table. You and Aradia and Rose are not by nature peacemakers - none of you are. You and Aradia are easygoing, yes. But you rarely bother to stop arguments going and sometimes you'll feed the flames just for the hell of it.

Sometimes you do distract from arguments with random questions if you have them, though. You do that today. "Did you guys know there's a talent show coming up?"

It works, or at least Sollux breaks off in confusion and Karkat glares at you with not at all concealed exasperation. "Yes, Strider, we were all aware. There are only a couple hundred godawful posters hanging around, and there's been a morning announcement, oh, every morning for the past fucking month? Do you ever pay even an iota of attention to your surroundings at all? It's basically impossible at this point for the school to shove our noses in the thing any further, which is fairly pathetic considering it isn't even for anything worthwhile and of course no one will go anyway because it isn't like it's a sports thing and everyone knows the only extracurricular that matters in high school is - "

Okay, apparently everyone else knew about the talent show. You hold up your hands in surrender. "Dude, just asking. I don't need Vantas Diatribe A about the state of our education, flavor: "the arts versus phys ed and why aren't you more angry about this, Strider". Spare me discussions of physical anything, y'all know I have gym next and I'm in mourning."

"You're the one who put off your requirement until senior year, asshole." Which, like. Karkat has a point about that, so you don't argue with him. Instead you let him go into the sports versus everything else diatribe and mostly tune him out to talk to Aradia about her latest D&D session instead. And so passes the rest of your lunch period, more or less peacefully by the standards of your group.

"There was one weird thing," you say to Rose as you walk her to Algebra II. You're dropping her and her books off there on the way to gym class, which you are unfortunate enough to have directly after lunch.

She raises her eyebrows. There is no one who raises their eyebrows quite like Rose. She can fit entire textbooks of thoughts into the movement and you know she knows you waited to get away from your friends before bringing it up. And there isn't a reason for that, really. Some kid asking you to be in the school talent show isn't such a big deal. You could have told her in front of them. You just didn't really feel up to making fun of some guy you barely know.

He seemed genuine in a way you don't often get to see. Enthusiastic without being sarcastic about it, although with the blasé manner in which he dealt with your own sarcasm you're pretty sure he has the capacity for it. "This kid John, stupid blue eyes? He asked me about being in a magic act for the talent show or something."

"My bio lab partner John?" That's out of her mouth quicker than anything and you're actually a little startled. "John Egbert?"

But you shrug, helpless. "I...apparently? Rose, why the fuck would I know that." It's true she's told you anecdotes about her bio partner before, but you don't recall her ever using his name. It was all just idle talk, the daily stories the two of you trade back and forth at the end of the day. Important only because it happened to the other person and you cared about what they had to say, not for any other reason.

She shakes her head as you pass by a long line at one of the better working fountains. You're a little thirsty but not enough to wait there, so you don't pause and just listen to her say "Continue."

And what else is there to say, really? "No, that's all there really is to it. He saw me doin' that coin trick and he, like. Asked to borrow my hands." Because John Egbert - you'll remember the last name now - apparently has no sense.

Apparently it is possible for Rose's eyebrows to go higher.

You sigh. "I know. But anyway, I told him no. So there wasn't really anything that interesting at all."

Rose watches you for a moment as she takes her bookbag back, and then her free books. There's some sort of strange considering sort of quality to that look that you can't quite read and don't try to. "If you say so, Dave. I'll see you after school."

You nod and jet off. Gym is your least favorite class of the day but as Karkat pointed out earlier you unfortunately put off your physical education requirement to senior year like a moron. You hate past you and your casual insistence future you would deal.


	4. a: the quick change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You just shrug. "That is pretty much exactly how these things happen, yes. So far you haven't said the right thing to get me to drop my emotional panties. You'll know it when it happens."

Your gym period is made up of maybe two other senior idiots who put off their physical education requirement for their final year, some upper years who actually just like having a physical education period (i.e. athletic types), and then a bunch younger years who are doing their required time reasonably early in their scholastic career. You don't really have any particular friends in the course, although you feel a sort of solidarity with the other two assholes who put things off for the last minute. You are all of you bound together by the requisite and completely unflattering blue mesh gym shorts and the more neutrally non-flattering white t-shirts with the school logo on the front right-hand side. Has anyone ever looked good in their gym clothes? Probably not.  
  
Today you have class outside because both God and New York hate you. And also probably your gym coach, Mr. Slick, who grimaces whenever anyone even looks like they're going to breathe a word of complaint. Admittedly you are pretty sure that he hates everyone and everything except maybe your guidance counselor. Although maybe he also likes making you go out in the cold because it happens way more often than it should otherwise. It is of course freezing out and the only consolation is the announcement that you're not going to be playing one of the many interchangeable ball sports but instead are just going to be running laps. And getting timed. Ugh.  
  
You're actually fast on your feet and really good at running but there is just something about doing it for school that makes it less fun. Possibly it's the part where your teachers and any track team kids in your classes usually want you to Do Something With Your Talent, which is pretty much the opposite of a thing you ever want to do with running. Accordingly you have mastered the art of running slower than you actually can in a way that looks natural - while making sure not to run so slow you get bitched out by the teacher. It is a careful balancing act that involves keeping to the middle of the high school herd as everyone hustles out to the track. Several guys and girls in the class are acting like this is a death sentence, while some of the more fit kids don't seem to care. Some, like you, are mostly concerned with the temperature. Or lack thereof. The cacophony of multiple conversations and complaints is soothing in its sense of normality.  
  
And then there is John Egbert bounding over to you like a rather excitable puppy. You can almost see the imaginary tail wagging and okay apparently he did not forget about this morning after all. Somehow the neutrally flattering t-shirt actually looks okay on him, you note. Probably because of his well-defined arms. The bright white against his still-visible tan looks nice, and the sleeves are sort of tight over his shoulders. What the fuck does he even do in his spare time to get that muscled? Sports, probably. "Dave! Hi. Have you thought about it at all?"   
  
You're both lining up at the starting line with the other sixteen students. Coach Slick is messing with his stopwatch, his usual heavy scowl firmly in place, and you don't bother to stretch but instead just keep an absent-minded eye on the guy so you know when to go. John's almost definitely going to get a late start if he keeps focusing on you rather than your teacher. As to thinking about it...you haven't really, although you mentioned it to Rose. You'd ask how John knows your name but you've been in the same gym class all year and it's probable John paid more attention than you as names were called for attendance and whatever else. You at least knew his first name even this morning. "I think a better question might be 'have _you_ '?"  
  
He rolls his eyes. "I have! So if you would just - "  
  
You don't stick around to hear what he says since the whistle goes and you set off running. Or jogging, really, by both your standards and Dirk's. You have to run a mile - four laps on your school's track - and then...well, knowing Coach Slick you're probably just going to keep running laps. You'd better pace yourself.  
  
Somewhat to your surprise it only takes about a yard for Egbert to catch up with you. You're not going as fast as you could, no, but you're not going slow, either. He's not even breathing hard. He looks over at you, having to reach up to shove his glasses on more firmly as he speaks. "You never answered, you know."  
  
"Never answered what?" You pick up your pace a little as you throw the question back over your shoulder, and like a duckling he follows along after, trying to draw even with you.  
  
"If there's anything you've ever seriously wanted to do. Like - " And okay, this sounds kind of serious for a gym class conversation on a track full of sweating teenagers who are admittedly mostly ignoring you, so you decide you don't want to have it. At least not for free. And not when you're this cold. So you don't let Egbert finish his sentence.  
  
Instead you interrupt with, "If you get a better time than me I'll chat, otherwise I have all kinds of lap-running to do. My mile time is highly important to me." This is mostly false. "I plan to break a school record and frame the certificate I get over my bed. It'll impress everyone I bring home. Do they give certificates out for that? Whatever, they should."  
  
"Keeping your mile time high is important to you, maybe." And that's a surprisingly accurate estimation of your feelings on the matter muttered under his breath. And then John fucking Egbert sprints away from you, so okay, apparently he's taking your randomly chosen challenge seriously. Unfortunately for him you make the snap decision to take it seriously too. You're kind of curious how he holds up against you actually trying.  
  
The answer is that John Egbert may not have your speed but he has all kinds of fucking stamina and determination. You're usually able to lose yourself in the even rhythm of your feet hitting the ground and your breath filling your lungs and then releasing in even time, but today most of your focus is on the guy in front of you - who quickly becomes the guy tailing you. He loses his lead about half a lap through but he can apparently at least manage to dog your heels around the track. John actually grumbles to himself a little as he finishes just a few seconds after you, and you already know that if you'd run this fast during the year - or even during your junior year or below - you'd be fending off track team offers. As it is the coach just looks mad that you're apparently better than you always have been - it's pretty pointless to try to recruit you for a sport that is pretty much ending for the year soon.  
  
John's grumbling is actually muttering, and he sounds annoyed with himself from what little you can catch. Because he couldn't beat you - and you're pretty sure from the way he glares that he knows you weren't even going top speed. You can't help it: you laugh. Or kind of laugh, a huff of air that's somewhere on the laughing spectrum. He looks so put out, he's actually _sulking_ , and he's apparently sticking to your completely whimsical-assed rule about having the conversation only if he beat you and it's just... "Okay," you say, starting up a walk because whatever you're not running the rest of the laps but if you don't start moving again Coach Slick will get on your case. "Okay, what haven't I answered?"  
  
John looks up from where he'd just fully stopped, hands on his knees as he caught his breath, but the second you finish talking he's jogging to catch up. He's breathing hard now. You're not. But you're pretty sure you're just differently athletic. "I didn't beat you?"  
  
You shrug. The running has at least gotten your blood circulating a bit and you feel kind of but not really warmer. Warm enough to bother talking a little, maybe, although you wouldn't want to stop moving even if the threat of the Coach going on at you weren't looming over your shoulder. "Well aware. I feel chattier now, though. So your window to ask me a thing is here, although it's closing in five, four, three, two..."  
  
He blurts out the question lightning fast, almost stumbling over the words in his haste to get them out before you finish your countdown. "If there's anything you've ever seriously wanted to do? Like - it's senior year, our entire high school careers are almost over. No going back to do anything you missed. And I don't want to leave never having - " He cuts himself off and shrugs. His breathing is already evening out, although he's sweaty from the all out sprinting that you did for the four laps of a mile. "I don't want to finish high school up on a pile of regrets? That'd suck."  
  
"High school is meant to be a time of regrets, dude." Seriously, why does he even believe otherwise? This is like high school 101. Or just life 101. High school happens, and it has highs and lows and you look back on it and you think why the fuck did I do that? "Whoever told you it would be the best time of your life majorly lied. Yearbooks exist specifically to capture every reason that wasn't the case, from your worst haircuts to your incorrect fashion choices - probably jeans and shirts will be out of vogue by the time we're old and gray and flipping through our yearbooks and wow why isn't everyone wearing a mullet?"  
  
John's brow furrows in confusion. "Why would everyone be - "  
  
"In the future mullets will circle around from being completely horrendous into being okay again." Duh.  
  
"Oh, obviously." He's rolling his eyes again, but he just keeps plowing forward with the conversation, ignoring your observations about future mullets. Rude. "But just because high school isn't always the greatest doesn't mean I should just give up and not even try to do the stuff I want to do before I graduate, I think. So." He skips ahead a few steps - you  _knew_  he looked like a skipper - and turns to walk backwards. There's an entreating grin and you have to wonder how many varieties of smiles this kid has. "Come on. There has to be at least one thing like that for you, that you've always kind of wanted to do but you've just never bothered with, because you figured you could do it later and you just kept putting it off and putting it off and then it was...you know, now. And you realized you had to do it or it wouldn't be _never would_ anymore but _never could_."  
  
The thing is that you can think of a dozen things when he says all that. Things that you maybe thought would be fun to try but just...never quite worked into your schedule. Back when you hit ninth grade you kind of wanted to check out the mathletes but it felt a little lame to admit that and you just never quite got around to checking it out. You've always meant to agree to do some of your photos in a school art show but you never have. Once you considered submitting shit to the yearbook committee but it just...  
  
Sometimes the stuff you do never seems quite good enough to show off. And sometimes you overthink the things you want to do and the time flies by and then you can't even do them any longer. It's stupid. So, like. "I mean, yeah, maybe. Everyone has shit like that. And I guess...it's kind of cool that you're trying to work through your list. Or one item on your list, anyway."  
  
"I'm doing the whole thing, actually." A shrug as John, still walking backwards, bumps into another kid and nearly falls over. You grab John's arm to steady him and the other guy's friend manages to snag his waist. They both glare at John, who laughs a little sheepishly. You let him go as soon as you're sure he won't eat pavement, and he grins. Or more accurately he continues to grin. The grinning continues to be a state of being which has not stopped happening. "But yeah, this is near the top."  
  
"What are some others? No, wait, let me guess. You want to set a school record in some sport. All the sports." You honestly don't know enough about him to make any other guesses. What you know about John Egbert amounts to the following: he's Rose's bio lab partner; he has a cousin who trains birds (badly) and a cousin who likes graphs; he does magic tricks with some unknown level of skill. So. Who knows what his hopes and dreams are? Not you.  
  
He's pretty flippant about the suggestion, though. "I've actually done that already. I mean, not all the sports. Just one of the sports. Why are we talking about sports like they're some weird alien activity?" You don't feel like enlightening him to your lack of enlightenment about all things ball-adjacent, so you just shrug. He moves on, apparently not all that bothered by it. "Anyway. Do you really want to know?"  
  
"Wouldn't ask if I didn't. Well - I guess I might ask if I didn't, because sometimes I talk just to talk, but if I didn't want to know I would run the fuck away from you. We have established I am in fact faster." Your mouth kind of hurts. You're smiling, you guess, and you're not used to it being obvious. Noticing makes it smooth away even as John just shoves you while he laughs. You don't even remotely lose your balance - it wasn't hard at all.  
  
"Asshole. Just...normal stuff, I guess?" He seems a little uncertain, but you pretty much do not know him well enough to pry. Probably. You're pretty sure that's a social rule or something. "Um. Some stuff that seems unlikely, and then things like...well, I have a laundry list of senior pranks I want to pull the last week of school. But that doesn't really count, because that's something I was always going to do. But I gave you one of mine already, so isn't it your turn?"  
  
And whoa, wait, hold the fuck up. "I never agreed to this trade?"  
  
"Come on. I promise I won't tell anyone!" He pouts. Actually _pouts_.   
  
You're kind of concerned that you can feel it working on you, so you man up and pretend that it isn't. "I'm not really worried about that. Anyway, you haven't unlocked my tragic anime backstory tier one, which includes my hopes and dreams."  
  
He's going to strain his eyes from rolling them at you. Rose once claimed you would kill someone that way, actually. "How do I unlock that? Do I get multiple choice text answers and go through them until I get a cutscene?" And okay. Nerdy? But you can't call him on it since you made the reference first.  
  
You just shrug. "That is pretty much exactly how these things happen, yes. So far you haven't said the right thing to get me to drop my emotional panties. You'll know it when it happens."  
  
"Because of the emotional panty dropping." John sounds incredibly deadpan, saying  _emotional panty dropping_  with heavy disbelief that you actually just said those words. "Were you really scolding me this morning for my phrasing?"  
  
You've always been a hypocrite and it has never really bothered you before. It also doesn't bother you now. "It doesn't count when it's my phrasing."  
  
"That seems kind of ridiculously unfair?" But despite the fact he'd been mildly appalled about the whole phrasing thing, John sounds amused, too. And he still can't stop fucking smiling.  
  
So you just raise an eyebrow at him, unbothered. "I never claimed to be fair, so whatever."  
  
"I think we're losing track of the point, here." He flaps a hand at you, and then drags the conversation back to where it had been originally. Which you'd kind of forgotten about because staying on topic has always been your weakest point. "You think it's cool I'm doing the talent show, right?"  
  
Which...that's kind of what you said, you guess, but not quite. You correct him with: "I said I think it's cool you're doing things you want to do."  
  
John's eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and you realize he's giving you that too-optimistic variety of smile and almost predict it when he asks, "So you'll do it? Team up with me for the talent show?"  
  
"I didn't say that." Because you definitely did not and that still sounds like a questionable disaster, even if John doesn't bother you as a person so far.  
  
"But you'll think about doing it?" John Egbert is apparently the most determined person you know. Though to be fair you haven't exactly told him to fuck off.  
  
You're pretty sure if you just flat out told John to fuck off he would, because he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be down with genuinely upsetting you. But even though you still don't really want to say yes you don't really mind him being around. There's something about the things he says and how utterly sincere he seems sometimes, which is honestly strange when most of your time is spent with sarcastic assholes. You settle on, "I didn't say _that_ , either."  
  
"Show me how to do the coin thing at least?" It's blurted out too-fast again, like when you'd almost timed him out from being allowed to talk to you. Like he's worried you're going to walk away and slam the conversational door in his face and he just has to jam his foot in there with anything so it's not closed permanently.  
  
It occurs to you that you have yet to see this guy do any magic. Of course you've only been talking to him for like a day and most of that has involved him soliciting you to be his assistant, so. This request is a lot smaller and you're actually considering it when the coach blows the whistle to indicate you're all free to go shower and change.   
  
You start to move on automatic towards the locker room, stretching your arms over your head and somehow not feeling any surprise as John falls into step with you again. But the way his face fell when the whistle blew strikes a chord and so does everything he's said since the start of class. Your mouth blurts out without any actual conscious input from your brain: "I'm free tomorrow after school."  
  
The blinding smile you get in response convinces you not to take the words back. So. Apparently you're doing magic tricks tomorrow after school. Your life is officially ridiculous.

But weirdly? You're pretty sure that if you hadn't offered you'd have one more of those high school regrets he was talking about to add to your own pile.


	5. a: the aztec lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two of you take your photos through the rotation of chemical baths and water rinses, watching the images darken to life and then settle. Eventually Aradia stops giving you considering looks and says, "There's something brewing just under your skin."
> 
> Sometimes she says weird bullshit like this. You look at your hands as you hang up the photo of your sisters to dry and shrug. "...Yeah, kinda."

A quick shower later and you're sitting through Honors Physics with wet hair. You've never been good at remembering to dry it or bothering when you do remember. You don't mind Physics but it has the unfortunate distinction of being right after a class that wears you out sometimes and right before your favorite class of the day. You're almost always watching the clock during class hours. And then checking your phone for a more accurate read. The clock in Physics ranges somehow from being seven minutes behind to five minutes behind the actual time. You kind of want to take it apart and fix it whenever you're in class. You may not understand machines the way Dirk does but you have always had a knack for understanding time pieces. You once managed to fix Dirk's wrist watch when he was sure he'd have to go and get a new one. One of the little gears inside had gotten stuck, and he'd stared at you for a good five minutes after you gently nudged it back into place with one of his tools before he'd wondered in one of his softer voices how he missed that. Then he'd ruffled your hair in thanks and neither of you had ever mentioned it aloud again.

Somehow you doubt the school faculty would take your assurances that you've got a knack with clocks seriously. Maybe you should pull a very specific senior prank fixing this exact clock?

That probably doesn't count as a prank.

You waste the entirety of Physics eyeing the clock and doodling comics in the margins of your notes. Since you aren't really taking notes this is really just doodling comics on the entire paper. You take exactly one sentence down because you like the phrasing but otherwise zone out. Thankfully the bell always rings on time in spite of the slow clock and you are released to Photography for the last and best class of your day.

Technically it's Photography III. You've already taken it once, Junior year, but you wheedled your way into it again for this year. You strongly suspect your Mom may have helped out there with some sort of school donation, but unlike Rose you sincerely do not mind your Mom throwing money at your problems. Especially if the problem in question was not having a photography class at all. Photography III was already pretty much a "do what you want as long as you turn in assignments and don't break too many rules" sort of class, but since you already completed it once with perfect marks, your teacher pretty much lets you do whatever you want to do to even greater degrees - not that you abuse this, since whatever you want to do is pretty much take pictures and then develop them. Rufioh Nitram is one of those "cool" teachers who tries to get along with the kids and who doesn't like to put too many rules in place in order to cultivate creativity or whatever, and he just kind of nods as people filter in and lets you all get down to business. He'll answer questions if you have them of course but he also won't really insist on you doing anything in particular.

This kind of teaching style meant Photography I was overrun with kids kind of fucking around for an easy A - at least until they realized the lack of rules didn't mean a lack of grading the actual work they produced. There are still a few of those in Photography III if they managed to find enough of a knack for photography for their work to pass through Mr. Nitram's grading system, but mostly the class is made up of kids who genuinely have an interest in the subject for whatever reason. You know all your classmates in the course and you get along easily with all of them. You share a table with Aradia, who arrived before you and already has a sheet of finished negatives out to look through, trying to decide what she wants to develop for the day. She mostly specializes in cool bones and other slightly morbid images, but there's also a few negatives of you and the others in there.

You don't interrupt her considerations, but go through your own shit and decide you're going to try a few different crops of a picture of your sisters that you shot the other week. Roxy has her feet up in Rose's lap while your twin paints your older sister's toenails with that look of careful concentration she gets whenever she's trying not to mess something up. There's a very slight curve to her lips, though, as she listens to Roxy ramble. Roxy talks with her hands the way you do and she's leaning in towards Rose with a huge smile as they share secrets in their pajamas.

You don't know what they were talking about because you didn't eavesdrop. But you did snap this shot just before they looked up and laughed at you, not bothered much at all. Your siblings tend to view your taking snapshots of them as a matter of course at this point in your lives. The only thing any of them have a problem with is the part where there are fewer photographs of you than anyone else in the family. The trials and tribulations of being the only one who really works a camera - or the one who insists on always working the camera, anyway.

"Your pictures of them always look so comfortable." Aradia says, quietly. Her voice is always soft like yours is, but less of a murmur and more restful. It's low, too, and a little husky. You like the sound, find it comfortable, and you smile at her almost just for that. She's twisting her hair up into a bun secured with a pencil in a trick you're sure you could never replicate. Aradia's hair is incredibly dark and thick and curly and Photography class is pretty much one of the only times she bothers to try to tame it.

"They make me feel comfortable." It's one of those weird little honest things that you find yourself saying to Aradia sometimes. There's something calming about her that just draws those little statements out of you easily where you tend to keep them locked away with other people. Probably it has to do with how she just hums acknowledgment and takes your words at face value, not pushing you for more or rushing you for less. Aradia never seems to mind what pace other people take with sharing or not and she never seems to find how you word things or look at things weird.

She's not as chatty as you can be but she doesn't mind if you ramble at her. She doesn't mind if you're just quiet, either, and sometimes the two of you will just work in complete silence. She tends to let you set the conversational pace even if she always contributes once a conversation is started up. Today you collect your chosen negatives and head into the dark room through the dumb little spinny door that's placed in front of the actual entryway. You grab two stations next to one another and start to work. As you're adjusting the shot on your enlarger you ask her, "Hey. Do you have any, like, high school regrets?"

Aradia's a good person to ask, you think. She won't ask why you're asking if you don't offer to tell her and she usually thinks about every question she's asked. She does that now, staying silent for maybe five minutes as she considers. If you didn't know her you might think she hadn't heard you or that she was ignoring you but you know she tends to like to get her thoughts ordered before she says anything, especially if it's about something she deems important. She's a strange and comfortable mix of casually friendly and philosophical. You can see her chewing her lip in the way she does whenever she's thinking really deeply about something, probably ruining the once even layer of so darkly red as to be black lipstick.

"I don't know if it's a high school regret in specific," She starts, as she finalizes the angle of her own enlarger and then turns it off, collecting a piece of photo paper to set underneath. "But if you mean a regret that will linger after we're done with high school, once we're moving on and out - I do have a few. The biggest one, I think, is that I never really solved certain problems I had - you know the fight I told you about? The one in middle school."

You do. It was before you moved to New York, a huge schism between Aradia and Sollux and Terezi and Tavros and one of their other friends. You have never pressed any of them for details but over the years you have collected those details anyway. Mostly. They were kids and things went a little wrong and none of them have really spoken to Vriska Serket in years - or at least they haven't done so particularly cordially. Terezi does sometimes, you know, but not that often. None of them really talk about their feelings about it or about how it split them apart from someone they'd known since childhood. Terezi sometimes almost seems like she might admit to an actual emotion about it - but only rarely, once in a while when the two of you are alone. A handful of times you could count on the fingers of one hand over a friendship spanning years.

Aradia admitting to wanting to solve that problem is therefore sort of surprising.

"I don't think forgiveness is really on the table for everyone. But you don't have to forgive and forget in order to move on together. And I don't think we got that when we were kids. I'm not sure enough of us get it even now to fix things. But if you're asking me about regrets...that would be the main one." She smiles at you, the red light of the dark room playing strange angles over her face as she looks up at you. Aradia's a full head and a half shorter than you, and you tend to slouch even more than usual in her company to even out your height differential. "What about you?"

If you refuse to answer she wouldn't be at all offended. That's part of why it's so relaxing to be around Aradia. But unlike John Egbert, Aradia has years of friendship to back her up, and she has definitely unlocked your tragic anime backstory and all levels of emotional panty dropping. Or some levels, anyway.

So you think about it. Something that would linger after you leave, or don't leave. Something that'd color the rest of your life with _what if I had just_...Do you have anything like that? Of course you do. Everyone does. Most people don't do anything about it, though, and you think that John is probably one of the bravest people you've ever known. And you don't even really know him. Yet? Maybe yet, since you did agree to hang out with him tomorrow.

"This is going to sound dumb in comparison to your thing." It's a warning and your friend just shrugs, not even making a joking comment that everything you say sounds dumb like Karkat or Sollux or Terezi or even Rose would have done. Aradia is maybe the least assholeish of your friends. Tavros doesn't usually say asshole things, but he does have a capacity to be a jerk.

You love all of them, really. But yeah.

Aradia's quiet, just waiting and not prompting. So you continue speaking after you flip on the light to set the photo on the paper. You'll have to run it through the chemicals for it to show, of course. But that can wait a minute or two. "I kind of regret never going to any of the school dances?" You feel dumb even as you say it even though it's true.

"You did the face painting in eighth grade," She corrects thoughtfully, but it's an absent-minded statement before she turns dark, sharp eyes on you. "But you mean going to a dance. You know we could have all gone in a group, or I would have gone with you."

She doesn't mean a _date_ so much as a friend date, and you both know it without having to clarify. That's never been how your friendship is - you like one another but you've never _liked_ one another, even if she's probably your favorite person to hang out with after Rose.

"Yeah." You shrug. "But I was never interested in the crowds, or the shitty playlists, or the drama, I guess? And now I just think...well, that would have been fun to do. At least once."

That's considered, too, before she nods. Aradia doesn't tell you there's still Senior Prom (there is, you know it, and you also know most people already have dates even though it's over a month off) and she doesn't offer to go with you. You're sure she would if you asked but she's a firm proponent of letting people do their own thing. You told her your maybe-regret but she won't make your do anything about it or even suggest you do anything about it any more than you'll nag her to do something about hers.

The two of you take your photos through the rotation of chemical baths and water rinses, watching the images darken to life and then settle. Eventually Aradia stops giving you considering looks and says, "There's something brewing just under your skin."

Sometimes she says weird bullshit like this. You look at your hands as you hang up the photo of your sisters to dry and shrug. "...Yeah, kinda." Because there is, maybe, since this morning. Or more accurately since a boy you'd never really spoken to asked you about regret and for you to help him make sure he doesn't have at least one more on the pile, and you've been thinking about it because you can't help yourself.

Aradia finishes hanging her own picture - a shot of a little owl's skull on the ground in the wooded area near her house - and hums again. "Let me know when you know what the shape of it is, if you like."

"Will do, babe." The bell rings before you can offer up anything else, though, and the two of you exchange a perfectly executed high five before you split up for the day. Aradia's sister picks her up, and you've got to go meet Rose at your car.

You wonder if the weird restless energy is more about doing something and figuring out where it is you're going in life or if it's more about something else entirely. Like a too-wide smile and a weird familiarity that shouldn't exist.

It's probably best not to think about that too hard for now.


	6. a: the dove pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TG: that is a question btw not a statement  
> TT: The punctuation on your phone is right there. You could just use a question mark.  
> TG: and ruin my decades long boycott on non scholastic question marks  
> TG: i think the fuck not

While you always make certain to get out of the school building as quickly as possible after the final bell so you're ready and waiting at the car, Rose rarely does the same thing. She's more likely to take her time than she is to worry about being punctual even for your sake. You could meet her at her locker to pick her up and you have done so in the past but your reaction to Kanaya cordially never intruding on your Rose-time is to kind of try to return the favor. You know. After you eventually figured out that was a thing and also that Rose appreciated the alone time. Once in a fit of sort of distracted loneliness you'd asked to tag along on an outing but Rose had pretty immediately shut you down and while you consistently say stupid shit to your sister you do try to respect any boundaries she outlines. Eventually.

So. You tend to end up waiting at the car either sitting inside in the cold or sitting on the hood of the car in warmer months. This is obviously not hood of the car weather. You've got your thick winter jacket on and zipped, hood up, and you're opening your phone. Despite how frozen your hands are you don't usually do gloves. The damn "smartphone compatible" gloves with the supposedly special fingertips to work against a phone screen tend to be hit and miss for you and despite all your bitching about the weather your connection to technology actually comes before being warm. It's way more important to have your fingers free to type than it is to worry about preventing frostbite.

Your siblings maintain that frostbite is unlikely to ever occur, anyway, and that you are simply being overdramatic. You're not sure any of them has room to talk when it comes to being overdramatic.

Speaking of your siblings, though. You pull up the Pesterchum app on your phone and tap Dirk's name. He's online and set to Palsy. Dirk is one of the few people you know who bothers to change his mood status on Pesterchum any more although he does so less according to his mood and more according to some weird calendar known only to him.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 15:07 --  
TG: hey do we have actual dinner plans  
TG: like as a family  
TG: like i know everyone probably plans to eventually eat dinner  
TG: because that is a thing real live people do if they want to like live and shit  
TG: gotta gnaw on the tasty food pyramid  
TG: even though im pretty sure some of the pyramid was debunked  
TG: idk every time i read anything about food its like SHIT PSYCH this thing we thought was good for you is in fact killing you slowly  
TG: or vice versa like hey great news this food is actually important and not literal poison  
TG: haha our bad we were actually killing you via you not eating this  
TG: oops guess you better get right on fixing that  
TG: its like you have to change your diet every other year based on scientists being bunch of goddamn cats  
TT: I'm not sure you can count on everyone planning to eventually eat dinner in our family. We admittedly have a crap track record at it. You and me more than the girls.  
TT: Also, you've never paid any attention to the food pyramid whatsoever. So it changing shouldn't really impact you at all.  
TG: hello to you too but ok ignoring completely our potentially unhealthy habits  
TT: Potentially?  
TG: youre burning yourself as much as you are me rn you asshole stop interrupting  
TT: I'm well aware, but by all means continue meandering towards your point.  
TG: well now i kind of forgot what it was bc the annoyance you inspire in me took over and shoved all my thoughts straight out of my head   
TG: i was just wasting time while i wait for rose  
TG: but it probably involved like asking what all we planned to eat  
TG: and submitting ideas for consideration if you didnt know  
TT: We can have whatever you want.  
TG: ok you dont know if everyone else would agree with that first the fuck of all  
TT: Of course they will. Whoever has an idea first usually wins the day. Should I wait for you to tell me you want pizza or is it fine to just put in the order now? That's a rhetorical question by the way. I've already got the pizza place on the line.  
TG: hey i could want something different  
TT: Sure you could. By all means let's pretend that I'm giving due consideration to the idea of you wanting something other than greasy deep fried cheese on bread on a Tuesday evening when you admit to wanting anything at all. I suppose there's the outside chance of you wanting Chinese, but we had that Sunday.

Wow, hey. It's not like you always ask for pizza or Chinese. It's just that everyone in the family likes both those things. Not everyone in the family likes, say, really spicy Mexican food. And you feel bad asking for anything that other people don't eat if you're all supposed to be eating together.

TG: i eat other things  
TT: Yeah. But you usually don't ask about eating anything as a group that isn't universally loved and accepted by all of us. Because you're an idiot.

Sometimes it's annoying your brother knows you as well as he does.

TG: you dont get to call me an idiot for a thing you do too  
TT: Sure I do. Big brother perks.  
TG: what the fuck are my little brother perks and are they as annoying as your older sibling perks  
TT: You know full well they are.

This is fully unfair and you will not stand for it. You call in reinforcements. Roxy's username is online and set to Chipper as usual. She hasn't changed it in years and you're pretty sure she rarely needs to.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 15:15 --  
TG: roxy dirks being mean to me  
TG: throw something at his head  
TG: im just assuming that youre with him ftr i mean maybe youre not but it seems more likely you are  
TG: lamo what is he bein mean about  
TG: *lmao typin 2 fast  
TG: i should totz join one of those texting competitions  
TG: id join up too why not  
TG: do they do team entries we could like annihilate anyone  
TG: hells yeah  
TG: but ok dirk says ur just bein kinda dumb about dinner  
TG: pizzas fine   
TG: and also neither of u can win the contest about bein healthy  
TG: what the fuck is this absolute betrayal  
TG: im your beloved younger brother youre supposed to take my side because im cute  
TG: even if im blatantly wrong  
TG: what kinda mad bribes are u offerin for me betraying dirk

Uh. Shit, good question. You rack your brain for things Roxy would go turncoat on Dirk for. Well, turncoat for non-serious sibling arguments. She's loyal as fuck when it comes to the lot of you not joking around but you can absolutely get her laughingly on your side of a pointless argument if you ante up something she wants. You remember the photograph you developed in class earlier and lock in on that idea.

TG: idk ill let you paint my nails  
TG: sold  
TG: lookit you the poster child of health  
TG: imma send a pic of u to all the docs in teh area  
TG: *the

The other window dings and you swap over to see what Dirk said.

TT: So what did she sell out for?  
TG: i dont know what youre talking about clearly she just knows im completely healthy and also not an idiot  
TT: So are you letting her dress you up?  
TG: half marks for nearly but anyway  
TG: pizza is the plan then  
TG: that is a question btw not a statement  
TT: The punctuation on your phone is right there. You could just use a question mark.  
TG: and ruin my decades long boycott on non scholastic question marks  
TG: i think the fuck not  
TT: Decade. You're only 18.  
TG: details

You happen to look up and finally at long fucking last spot your twin slowly meandering towards the car while chatting with Kanaya.

TG: anyway i see rose finally  
TG: and you know what they say about texting and driving  
TT: I know what I've said the one time you tried it.

Yep. That was stupid. You weren't technically driving at the time in that you were at a red light but Dirk flipped every single lid anyone ever had ever when you got home. He worries about you a lot but even so you can count on one hand the number of times he's ever raised his voice at you ever. That was the loudest and most memorable and you've never been even remotely tempted to try the texting thing while in the car ever again even if you don't think there's any way he could find out. Causing Dirk to yell is basically your least favorite pastime and you still feel kind of terrible about that.

TG: yelled  
TG: what you yelled  
TG: ill admit that was dumb even tho nothing happened  
TG: no bribing people to say it wasnt  
TT: Thank you.  
TT: See you soon, bro.  
\-- timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 15:23 --

With Dirk closed out you switch back to your conversation with Roxy again.

TG: gotta jet i see rose  
TG: i expect u 2 dish w me when i paint ur nails!!!!!!!!! :3  
TG: i will somehow manage to make this sacrifice  
TG: you just gotta assign me a cute celebrity to talk about   
TG: ill get my squeal on  
TG: <3  
TG: <3 later sis  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 15:25 --

By the time you tie things up with your older siblings Rose has slid into the passenger's seat and you both head home in relative silence. She messes with the radio and you critique the djs of the stations she picks. It's easy. Literally every radio dj is an asshole and you're capable of explaining how and why in probably excruciating detail. A block from home your car makes some more worrying sounds but both you and Rose are too used to this to be that concerned. Rose is not above making arch remarks about the death trap you choose to lovingly drive, but hey.

Home brings changing into casual clothes and doing your damn homework (Rose helps you with History and edits your English shit so it's not just a million run on sentences and dropped metaphors and you check her math homework for any errors) and eventually your Mom calls and says she'll be late. She works a lot and none of you are surprised. You think Rose used to mind more before you and Dirk moved in and that she and Roxy used to kind of stick to their rooms, but now what happens is the pizza Dirk ordered is delivered and all four of you set up camp on the living room floor around the coffee table. The boxes of pizza and cheesy bread are piled on the table along with everyone's preferred drinks, artistically arranged by Dirk so that no one has to reach too far for anything they'll need.

Roxy puts in _Never Been Kissed_ because it's her turn to pick and she usually does romantic comedies. You're more prone to art film shit or juvenile humor or the bizarre. Dirk likes some of the same shit but also action movies. Rose likes things with a plot. It's almost impossible to find a movie that caters to four different people at the same time so you go in rotation and put up with everyone else's picks.

You like this time with your siblings. You like it when your Mom is around as well but fancy science waits for no one and when she is around she makes up for it by being loud and adoring. By your standards she makes up for it, at least. But your standards have admittedly been tried and tested by other parental figures, and for all her flaws Mom is a pinnacle of good parenting in comparison to those.

That's not something you like to think about so usually you just don't. You focus instead on Dirk's comforting presence to your left, Roxy's kind of bony shoulder pressed into your arm on your right. Rose is on Dirk's other side, legs draped across his lap and back against the couch - it's L-shaped and you're all sort of using it as a backrest. Bracketed by your favorite people in the world you feel comfortable and safe and home and it relaxes knots in you that you aren't always aware of until they come undone.

You burn the roof of your mouth with greasy pizza cheese because you're too impatient to wait for it to cool and then chase it down with apple juice. The sickly sweet juice doesn't quite cool your mouth off but you like the taste of sugar and apples. Roxy finishes eating her three slices before you're even halfway through your second and holds out her hand for one of yours - the right hand, on her side. "Time to pay up, Davey." Apparently she came to dinner prepared, because before you register it she's pulling out a bottle of a weird glimmery black nail polish from her pocket to work with. You'd put your hand in hers as soon as she held hers out without even seeing the bottle and her hand when it steadies yours is warm. You hold still to let her work without needing to be scolded into it. "Soooo," your elder sister drawls as she covers the nail on your index finger in the black opalesque paint with a steady and practiced hand. "I was promised dishin'."

You let your head drop back and rest against the couch. Rose prods your leg with her foot over Dirk's lap, and you make a face at her sideways. She laughs at you and Dirk does nothing to stop this blatant attack on your personal space. Asshole. You don't do anything to stop it either, though, just responding to Roxy instead. "Gimme a celeb to wax poetic about, then. Or the topic of your choice. Did any celebrity couple have a kid and name it something truly unfortunate recently? Probably. That seems like a common thing." Although the name Apple was not as unfortunate as it could be.

"You're not even bothering to hide the bribery angle, are you." Dirk sounds amused in that kind of monotonous way he has, though. You make a face at him, too, for good measure.

"You're just jelly you aren't getting one of my manicures. If you ask nice when I'm done with Dave I'll do you, too!" Roxy has always been semi imperturbable to sibling antics. "Nah, tell me about your day, Davey! I want every detail." Roxy always asks this like you and Rose and Dirk will have interesting shit to say. She's never disappointed, because she finds even the mundane interesting when the three of you are involved. It's fairly sweet. But then you guess you've always been the same way when it comes to the three of them.

You shrug but are careful to keep your hand still. Then you start to rattle off your day in bullet point form. "Dropped Rose off, talked to a guy who wanted me to be in the school talent show because of my magic hands, went to class, had lunch - "

Obviously Roxy hones in on one thing there. You notice Dirk shift out of the corner of your eye, too, interested but not willing to say so. His elbow knocks into yours as he does. Roxy makes a startled noise and actually asks about it, though. "Your magic hands?" Her tone is filled to the brim with amusement and then pretty much overflowing and god would it be cool if your siblings didn't find that statement so hilarious. Granted you're not sure them taking that idea seriously would be better at all, but it's the principal of the thing.

And yeah, Roxy and Dirk look just as dubious as Rose did about someone saying that to you, too. About as dubious as you imagine you had looked when John Egbert had said the words to you. You've abandoned eating your second slice of pizza to the cheap paper plate on the table assigned to you and instead roll the fingers of your free hand demonstratively. "You know, with the coin trick? He's doing a magic show. I think he wants me to be his assistant or at least to educate him on sleight of hand. YouTube did not occur to him, I guess."

All of your siblings consider that for a good five minutes. Apparently they are just as flummoxed as you by the actual magic show thing.

"You gonna do it?" Dirk tends to try to be direct about points with you these days, sometimes, while he can be a cagey motherfucker like everyone else. Like you can be. It's a work in progress but it's good for both of you.

You always try to respond in kind by actually answering the questions he bothers to ask you. Honesty for honesty when you two can manage it. Sometimes you both critically fail your attempts but you still keep trying to make them. The Lalondes don't interrupt as you shrug again. "Dunno. Gonna hang out tomorrow after school, though." You can't really keep plans like that under wraps without a bunch of stupid lying and dodging plans, so. You're not keeping them under wraps. And also Dirk asked. "I can drop you off at home beforehand."

That's said as an aside to Rose. She just looks at you with that too-thoughtful expression that means she's probably reading a lot into everything you're doing and saying right now. You're too relaxed to freak out about it and figure that's a problem for future Dave, though. "No, I can arrange for another ride. You have fun, Dave."

"In the mean time...what about the rest of your day?" Roxy easily scoots the conversation along.

"Normal shit. Did mile times in gym - " Every single asshole of a sibling laughs. Dirk's is just a huff of air disguised as a cough, Rose covers her mouth without a sound, and Roxy just straight up giggles. They're all picturing you in the cold, you know, and you scowl at them. " - then I developed that shot from last week of the two of you in Photography. I'll show you later. Might be good enough to hang, I dunno. What about you guys?"

It's not as full on the details as Roxy might like but for all you're talkative as fuck you're still unpracticed at recounting your day in real life with people who actually give a fuck. Maybe in another decade you'll fall into practice.

"Worked on a project," is Dirk's stellar contribution to the day summaries.

"I went out for lunch with a friend! Then I had my programming class and women's history. And Dirk still won't tell me what his project is." Roxy pouts and you figure she maybe means the TMNT lunchbox thing. So apparently it's top secret or something. But Dirk does the thing Rose does sometimes and tries not to tell you guys about shit that matters until he's certain what's going on with it. You eye him speculatively but don't ask.

"Nothing out of the ordinary occurred for me." Rose is even cagier than you and your brother and for less reason. Mostly she's just a fucking cat about information sometimes. All of you are used to it. "Although I am sad to say the honorable Mr. Toad is no more."

She means bio lab dissections, you figure. "Weren't you guys doing frogs?"

"Yes." There's no further explanation, though. "What color is that, Roxy?"

You'd wondered yourself so you let the topic change. Roxy grins. "All of 'em! It's the color changing stuff. Magic Mood Ring."

And okay, that's, like. "Fucking sweet." You're pleased. You like dumb shit like that and Roxy laughs even as Dirk leans takes your right hand to examine the sheen on your nails. Roxy's just about finishing up your left now.

"Me next," Dirk says after a second, apparently approving.

Conversation fades out as you all watch the movie, your fingers spread so the nails dry faster as Roxy diligently starts to paint your toenails.


End file.
